Horizon Point Consulting

Category: Beyond Leadership

Beyond Leadership is Horizon Point’s line of resources for managers of people. Managing ourselves is a distinct set of behaviors from managers the work of others, and we are here to help. Read stories in this category if you are ready to take the next step into people leadership (or if you’re looking for articles to send someone else…).

  • 2 Steps to Keep People from Quitting

    2 Steps to Keep People from Quitting

    Do you know the number one reason why people quit a job? It’s not for more money or better benefits or advancement opportunities. People may cite these factors as a reason for leaving in an exit interview or casual conversation, but what most likely led them to look elsewhere in the first place is because of a bad boss. As a Harvard Business Review article stated, “Studies have consistently shown that having a bad manager or a poor relationship with one’s manager is a top reason an employee quits.”

    Yep, most likely your number one reason for turnover is bad leadership, especially at the frontline level. And how much does turnover cost? Most studies report between 150-300% of the person’s annual salary depending on the position. Ouch.

    However, in the same Harvard Business Review article, only 12% of survey respondents said they currently invest sufficiently in the development of frontline managers.

    So one of the best ways to nip a turnover issue in the bud and to potentially gain a competitive advantage over competitors is to fix your leadership issues, with the greatest bang for your buck being at the frontline level. Here are two steps to do just that:

    1. Identify, assess and select frontline leadership talent based on skills needed to effectively lead and develop others, not skills needed to perform successfully in the doer role. The classic Peter Principle states the people are often promoted to their level of incompetence. Most frontline leaders are promoted to a supervisory role because they are good at the doer role, not because they are equipped with the skills to be effective leading others.

    Whether you are hiring someone externally or promoting from within, you need to assess both the leadership potential of the person (skill) as well as the desire to be in a leadership role (will). As Kris Dunn said in one of his all-to truthful and to-the-point performance management posts at HR Capitalist, “That makes hiring people (leaders) – who are comfortable with the gray and understand the value of taking many small actions towards a goal with no guarantee of success – one of the most important things you can do today.” Find out if the person can lead others in a gray world and if he/she actually wants to.

    If you want some tips on what dimensions you need assess potential leadership talent for, give us a shout out and we can help. Kris Dunn’s post just cited has some food for thought on this, and entrepreur.com can help you get you started in thinking about key traits to evaluate.

    2. Teach frontline leaders the skills they need to be effective in a management role. We often promote people to their level of incompetence because we throw them to the wolves as a new leader and expect them to come out alive.   What often happens is we make no investment in cultivating the new skills needed be effective at our organization and then are surprised when they fail.

    Doing this before someone is even promoted and/or hired into the role is imperative. For example, we have a company we love working with that calls us to come and do one-on-one leadership coaching/training with anyone before they are promoted into a supervisory role. You can’t be promoted without this step in the process.

    Developing and deploying a leadership development training plan at an individual and company level in order to effectively transition people from doer to leader then ensure people maintain and grow in effective leadership skills is an ongoing effort. Development plans are also a great way to facilitate succession planning and foster employee engagement.

    If you want more tips on strategies for putting together effective development plans, you might like these posts:

    3 Steps to Better Leadership  

    Get a Leadership Development Game Plan

    What has been your number one strategy to keep people from quitting? Does it involve leadership development?

  • Leadership Tips for Teachers: Leading the Next Generation

    Leadership Tips for Teachers: Leading the Next Generation

    Back to the classroom! As summer is coming to an end, teachers and students are gearing up for another school year. While school supplies and new sneakers are on the list for back to school, we encourage teachers to consider adding sharpening their leadership skills to the list.

    “Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence.” Sheryl Sanberg

     

    What a great motto for teachers to consider! In your quest to lead the next generation, we recommend the following leadership tips:

    Build relationships with your students. Be genuinely concerned about their interests in and outside of the classroom. This is a great way to build trust and open the lines of communication. And, without even realizing it, students are learning to do the same. A great quality for leaders is relationship building.

     

    Involve students in the learning process. Students are more likely to enjoy learning if they have input in the process. Give them a choice of assignments or maybe even the due date on assignments once or twice this year.

     

    Lead by example. Take the lead as a learner. Continuous learning is always a component of being a good educator. Keep students in the loop on what professional or personal development you are working on this year.

     

    Be an encourager. No matter what background students come from or how successful they are in academics or sports, they all need encouragement. Great leaders are encouragers. Encourage your students and encourage them to encourage each other.

     

    For more insight into leadership, check out these post from The Point Blog:

    10 Books Leaders need to be Reading

    Top 10 Leadership Quotes

    Establishing Leadership as a High School or College Student

  • Leaders Focus on a Whole New World

    Leaders Focus on a Whole New World

    I was going through my old email account one day and happened upon this gem of advice from my late mentor, Dr. Jim Cashman:

    Date: February 28, 2006 at 6:04:09 PM CST

    Mary Ila: Remember the last meeting of MGT 300. I went over the test and then played a segment of the Wizard of Oz, stressing the importance of leaving the university with a brain (scarecrow), the courage to present and defend your ideas (lion), and to be loved by getting involved in your community (tin man/it is not how much you love, but how much you are loved by others). Finally, you remember that I said we had to do better than Dorothy and not think of Kansas the ideal. Rather be like Aladdin and take a Magic Carpet Ride. I hope you remember that from the last day of my part of the MGT 300 class. I love doing it.

    You have done all of the first three (Brainy, Courageous, and Greatly Loved) , now I want you to get on the carpet and let yourself feel that it is A WHOLE NEW WORLD, AND IT HAS A MAGICAL POINT OF VIEW.

    You are the best.

    Love,

    Dr. C

    First, man I miss this man. Second, he was hopelessly optimistic and mind-numbingly encouraging (case in point him saying I was already brainy, courageous and greatly loved- I still have a long way to go with all of these), but what stuck out the most to me, was to question whether or not have I would have made this man proud by getting on the “magic carpet”? In other words, have I taken risks and thought outside of the box?

    I’m not sure that I can answer that question for myself fully, but it has led me to consider these few points to aid in striving for a “whole new world” and my recent viewing of Aladdin with my four year old has helped with this:

    1. Living in fear serves no purpose.

    2. Surrounding yourself with people who challenge you and make you better is key.

    3. You define what your whole new world is, don’t let anyone else do it for you.

    4. Comparison is the enemy of discovering a whole new world.

    5. The whole new world is only important if it creates a whole new world of opportunities for others. The whole new world isn’t selfish.

     

    Thank you, Dr. C. for challenging countless students to get on the magic carpet (not the one sung about in the song, yes, I know what that whole magic carpet was about). If we all take the challenge, we can truly create a whole new world. Even better, we can act as leaders to help others learn these truths and create a multiplying whole new world.

    What is keeping you from discovering a whole new world or from challenging someone else to discover one for his/herself today?

  • What’s Your Leadership Mindset on Empathy & Expectations?

    What’s Your Leadership Mindset on Empathy & Expectations?

    Having high expectations of people. Being empathetic. I’ve written about this balancing act before. Are they in conflict with each other, or are they actually complementary? When they seem to be in conflict with each other, which way should we lean?

    No greater example illustrates this than something I’ve been struggling with lately. In three particular instances (two recent, one a few years ago) I’ve had someone tell me and/or a family member that they are going to do something or take care of something. Not one of these things has been followed through on. Being that one of my first premises of leadership (following a close second to putting others first) is DWYSYWD- Do What You Say You Will Do, I’ve written this leader in title off as something far from a leader.

    When you don’t do what you say you will do, especially when you show a pattern of not DWYSYWD, these are the reflections I have about that person and their leadership ability:

    1) You’re incompetent. You say you will do something, but then you don’t have the wherewithal to follow through. This may seem pretty bad, but the second reflection is worse:

    2) You’re a flat-out liar. You had no intentions of doing what you said you would do, you just told me what I wanted to hear. I would rather you not say you will do anything, even if I expect you should, than to tell me you will then not do it.

    In reflecting, well let me be honest, in stewing over this for the last few days, I came across this nugget of insight from one of my favorite blogs, Fistful of Talent:

    In discussing the importance of curiosity for leadership, the author says,

    “Belief in the rationality of others – I once heard one of my heroes (Doug Stone) say that everyone is typically acting in rational ways that makes sense in their minds. If you don’t understand their behavior, ask questions to better understand them instead of writing them off as irrational. A slightly more famous leader (Abraham Lincoln) was also quoted as saying “I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.” If you chalk up the behavior of others being “mad or bad,” then you miss out on an opportunity to learn from them. If instead you get curious, you just might change your mind, or at least understand better how to relate to them.”

    Whereas I haven’t written this person off as irrational, I’ve written then off as maybe worse- an incompetent liar. So, rather than stewing, should I be asking the person questions? And what should my questions be? When someone doesn’t DWTSTWD are he or she acting rationally?

    Although I still hold true to the importance of DWYSYWD to establish creditability as a leader, my judgment isn’t reflecting too highly on my leadership mindset either. First, I should act in empathy- because lets face it, if I’m honest with myself there are times when I have said I would do something only not to do it. And I always had some “rational” excuse for not doing so.I assume people will understand, and asking questions and making sense of the situation(s) is the right thing to do.

    Then maybe acting in empathy, especially if a pattern of DWYSYWD is present, requires calling them on this behavior in an empathetic, non-judgmental in a way that leads it to stopping. But first I must look in the mirror and call myself on similar behaviors before doing so. And now I’m back to my first rule of leadership- people first.Thank you Fistful of Talent for helping me come full-circle J

    When have you struggled with someone who didn’t do what they say they would do? How did you respond?

    If you like this post, you may also like:

    Balancing Empathy and Expectations as a Leader

  • 3 STEPS TO BETTER LEADERSHIP

    3 STEPS TO BETTER LEADERSHIP

    Leaders make more leaders. You aren’t a leader if you don’t. But how do you go about making more leaders? By acting as a career agent, you can successfully combat disengagement and serve the role that a leader is meant to serve- growing others.

    But how do you play the role of career agent? Here are three easy steps:

     

    1. ASK & ASSESS: Asking simply involves deploying the question, “What do you want out of your career?” in individual meetings with your subordinates. You may want to break this down into what they want 1 year, 3 years, 5 years and 10 years from now. This is a simple but powerful question that begins to frame how you can begin to act as a career agent by knowing first hand what outcomes a person is seeking.

    Once you have asked this question, you need to assess where people are in their path to the outcomes they want. This includes an honest assessment on your part and on their part about their strengths and areas for development. You can do this in a casual way through one-on-one conversations, or deploy self-assessment and/or 360° evaluation tools.

     

    2. GAME PLAN: The direction a person seeks and the results of the assessment phase then give you the opportunity to develop a game plan for maximizing that person towards their goals with the organization’s needs in mind. This game plan should accomplish three things:

    • Address areas of strength and weakness in assessment phase
    • Lead to more engagement from the employee
    • Meet business needs

    The game plan should include both:

    • WORK ASSIGNMENTS: These assignments should contribute directly to what the organization needs and should be opportunities for growth for the person. For example, you may have a pressing business need to map out all of your organization’s processes to streamline and create efficiency. Utilizing someone on your team who has this strength OR has never done something like this before (depending on the situation is who you would assign) can help the organization meet the need and help the person grow a strength or develop in an uncharted area.
    • PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES: These activities are things that the person should take responsibility for accomplishing on their own time through their own initiative and effort. For example, it may be attending an accounting class, reading articles on certain topics, or taking on or pursuing a mentoring relationship.

     

    3. EXPOSURE: The final step of the process actually involves following through on your end of the deal as a leader when the person follows through on their gameplan. As we described in a previous article on this topic in Alabama HR Magazine, beginning on page 14, make people aware of opportunities that arise, even if they are outside your organization.

    This may mean letting them go to another organization. If you’re having career agent conversations with people, they are going to be more productive and you probably don’t want to loose this type of employee.

    This may seem counter intuitive to an employee retention strategy, however, making employees aware of outside opportunities that are a fit for their career plans, and helping facilitate those opportunities even if they are outside your organization, is a good move in the long run.

    They become walking and talking recruitment ads for you and your organization, which is hard to come by for free. It leads to a bigger picture recruitment and retention strategy. And who knows, their career path may lead them back to your organization more valuable than when they left.”

     

    The leaders as career agent process can be one that replaces your performance evaluation/appraisal system if done correctly. Consider it as a new paradigm in how you evaluate, develop and grow people within your organization.

    Help Leaders become Career Agents with a helpful tool found here.

    Want to teach people to be career agents? Check out our Leaders as Career Agents course outline.